Category: Video Games

Category: Video Games

I guess this is a thing now. And by that, I mean I’ve already done three Pokemon types in this format — why not do all of them over time? In all seriousness, I love the adventure that is theorycrafting. It’s something I’ve done for a while on other games, but I’ve kept that madness to spreadsheets in my Google Docs, safe from the sight of others. There’s not a ton of people that want to read about theorycrafting for Fire Emblem or Brave Frontier anyway. But oddly enough, Pokemon theorycrafting gets a lot of clicks and interaction. So why not keep trying? As I’ve done on previous Pokemon team/gym style posts, I’ll be sharing the six Pokemon on my team, along with their held items and moves. I’ll also be giving a little additional background into why I’ve chosen each of these Pokemon. I won’t be using legendary Pokemon on my team, as has been the case in previous posts. Additionally, I’m not going to use Pokemon I’ve used in previous team posts on this list. As we get deeper into the type list, this could prove more challenging1I’m going to be saving Normal and Flying for the end for a reason.. That said, I also tried to mirror this team to how I play Grass types in games. Want to read my other My Pokemon Gym posts? Go read the Fighting, Ice, and Psychic type posts when you’re done here. Thanks to Stephanie for suggesting that Grass should be the next type in this series.

Decidueye

Grass is one of the few Pokemon types where I actually have multiple Pokemon I’d use as my lead. I’ve opted to make my other typical choice the anchor to this team (as it’s the closest thing I could think of to being my signature Grass Pokemon2There is a second Grass Pokemon that I’d say fills that role too, but I’m saving it for a later team thanks to its other type.). I quite enjoy that Decidueye gets access to a ton of tempo-changing moves such as Tailwind and U-Turn, making it a surprisingly good lead. The only problem I have with it is the lack of a good item to put on it, so if you have better ideas than Spell Tag for this type of role, I’d love to hear them.

Tangrowth

Tangrowth: stalling out teams since 2006. In all seriousness though, I love how Tangrowth is such a verstile bulky Pokemon. There’s a ton you can do with it, ranging from being a wall to a physical attacker, to a special attacker, to a mixed attacker. I’ve tried to reflect that in the moveset below. It’s probably not the best set you could have on Tangrowth, but it is the one that epitomizes what Tangrowth is to me.

Mega Abomasnow

I really don’t like most mega Grass types. I mean, they’re fine, but they’re not what I prefer to use in battle. Kind of like Grass types in general. That said, there are some objectively good Mega Grass types, of which Abomasnow is one of them. Having Mega Abomasnow on the team allows me to pay homage to my favorite type — Ice — while allowing me to have some coverage against a few worrisome types. The beauty to Mega Abomasnow is that it doesn’t care about Speed. You will always outspeed it. It’s here to hit things hard, no matter how that needs to happen.

Vileplume

I’m very pro-Oddish and wanted to make sure the Oddish line was represented on my team. While a lot of people like Bellossom, I prefer Gloom’s other end stage as the end evolution of this line. Though this team is surprisingly filled with physical attackers and tanks, Vileplume serves as my coverage special attacker. There’s not a ton of coverage against Fire types on this team, and Vileplume continues that trend. If nothing else, it should be able to take out most anything else that it comes across.

Tsareena

Gen VII has some really good Grass type Pokemon…is a sentence I never thought I’d say about any Pokemon generation. That said, nearly all of my cuts from this team came from Gen VII, including Lurantis, Dhelmise, and Shiinotic. That doesn’t even take into consideration Kartana, which is pseudo-legendary. Tsareena is best known for its signature move, Trop Kick3Not to mention being the most likely candidate in Pokemon for Rule 34 this side of Gardevoir., but it’s also a shockingly bulky Pokemon. The goal here is for Tsareena to serve two purposes — to be the Sunny Day setter for my anchor Pokemon, as well as to hopefully take something down with it.

Leavanny

Instead of using one of my favorite scout Pokemon as a lead, I’ve decided to use Leavanny as my cleanup ‘mon. Leavanny is here for all the critical hits ever, driven in part by its Chlorophyll ability. Yes, this is a double-edged sword against Fire types. But it’s worth the boosted speed. The lone downside to this is that I’m choosing to carry Sunny Day as a just-in-case move. While I’d love to get Sunny Day from anyone earlier in this list, Grass type are generally not known for their speed. Using Mega Sceptile over Mega Abomasnow just to set up Sunny Day seemed like a waste, so I put it on one of my bulky team members, kept it on Leavanny as a fail safe, and decided to leave Fell Stinger off of Levanny’s moveset.

Welcome back to the worst Fire Emblem Awakening play through ever. When we last left the Shepherds, our heroes were busy getting their ass saved by a dark, brooding heroine who goes by Marth. The Exalt, Emmeryn, is safe, but rumors are someone may try to kill her again. Ylisse is now at war with Plegia, Virion is still riding my unit bench, and I’m about to do some more reeking box grinding to anger Fire Emblem purists. That and because it’s been nearly two months in real time between when I wrote chapters 3-6 in one day and when I’m writing this post.

In this post, we’ll be playing through chapters 7 and 8 of the story. The next post will contain chapter 9 by itself, so this will be the last two-parter for a little bit.

Chapter 7: Incursion

The Shepherds have arrived at a mountain pass, apparently walking the whole way here as evidenced by the fact that Lissa is complaining about how much her feet hurt. While this makes sense for some of our party members, Frederick has a horse. Yet, instead of riding said horse, not only is he walking up the mountain, he’s doing it in his full riding suit of armor. Because reasons. Christopher Robin joins in on the complaining about the walk and Chrom offers to carry him, but not Lissa. It seems our budding bromance continues. Christopher grows concerned about a priest who is travelling with them when suddenly the Plegian army appears. Our battle starts now.

Just kidding. We’ve been ambushed by a crew lead by someone named Vasto who is doing a lot of sniffing for someone who refuses to admit they have a cold. Before the battle can start officially, the aforementioned priest reveals that he’s a double agent working for King Gangrel. He says the king offered him protection, but Vasto is a true believer in the philosophy that snitches get stitches and promptly has one of his underlings murder the priest4I both love and detest when this trope is invoked in video games and movies. It’s terrible, yet a great way for a bad guy to get some instant heat. It just doesn’t work well here since Vasto has zero plot importance.. Chrom shouts to Phila — who we haven’t seen in this entire cut scene, but we’re supposed to believe is there — to take Emmeryn — who we also haven’t seen — out of harms way. NOW our battle starts.

We’ve got some pretty serious leveling to do for some of our newer units such as Gaius and Lon’qu, as well as neglected units like Stahl, so this seems like as good of time as any to let them wreck shit. We also have Panne, who puts the Rabbit of Caerbannog to shame. Our first turn is largely just a wave of bad guys who think it’d be a good idea to let Vaike kill them, which is effective for me, but less so for the Plegian army. I decide to let Christopher hang back, as he’ll be needed at the entrance of the map shortly. Turn two is much of the same, only replace Vaike with Lon’qu. At the end of the second turn, my favorite modded nation leader from Civilzation V, Cordelia, shows up. She’s a pegasus knight who is a redheaded, female Mr. Perfect. Her cut scene actually shows us that Phila is here, which I’m pretty sure the developers only added after the fact when they realized their story had a giant plot hole. Trust me, I’ve been there.

We continue on. Stahl finds a shiny bow, Maribelle heals people to the point where I can nearly reclass her, and Panne is still a beast. I pair up Cordelia with Christopher so that I can deal with the impending reinforcement Cordelia mentioned upon her entrance. That said, they don’t have time to get there, as Chrom gets a critical hit on Vasto, killing him, while Lon’qu, Panne, and Stahl clean up the rest of the level.

We cut to Cordelia warning us that the Plegian army is hot on our heels, thanks to the fact that the Plegians have broken through the Ylissean border. Cordelia’s entire pegasus knight brigade was slaughtered by the Plegian army, but she managed to escape because of plot conveinence. Cordelia rightly has a nervous breakdown, Chrom gets angry, and Emmeryn makes a cameo long enough to tell us that she needs to leave. Before she does, however, Emmeryn gives Chrom the Fire Emblem5Roll credits. and tells him to take it to Ferox for safe keeping. We get a good bit of arguing between Chrom/Lissa and Emmeryn over whether or not Emmeryn should go before Emmeryn pulls the ‘I am your god-queen’ card and makes the decision final. Phila — now Cordelia’s commanding officer following the loss of her squad — commands Cordelia to stay with the Shepherds, so I guess we’re getting a new unit. Chrom continues arguing and yelling as Emmeryn leaves, ending our chapter.

After the save point, we’re back in Arena Ferox where Chrom, Sumia, Lissa, and Christopher are discussing Emmeryn’s safety6I can’t remember if Sumia is only here because she’s already married to Chrom by this point or because she’s plot critical.. Chrom is so preoccupied with his sister’s safety that he’s not listening to anyone, so Sumia slaps him. And by slaps him, she does it with a closed fist, so I mean she punches him7So no. Not plot critical. And by that, I mean Sumia’s entire existence isn’t plot critical.. Flavia thinks this is hilarious. She also wants to let us know that the Feroxi army is mobilized and ready to help Ylisse. Nick Fury is coming too, but before he comes, he tells us that Ylisstol has fallen and the Emmeryn has been captured. Basilio wants us to think things through before acting, which means Chrom does exactly not that. Even Christopher is getting sick of Chrom’s impulses at this point and tells him to calm down. Now we’re formally ready to move on to the next chapter.

Chapter 8: The Grimleal

The chapter opens with Chrom talking about how he’s convinced the Shepherds have just wandered into another Plegian trap, but that the Plegians haven’t spung it yet. Frederick shows up, explains that there’s a battle ahead and gives us some exposition on how moving in sand levels work, and then we move on. What the hell is this? A chapter with minimal cut scene work before I get to play? Can I have more?

After selecting units, we’re introduced to Nowi, who is a very specific trope. You see, Nowi is thousands of years old (because of reasons we’ll get to in a moment), but looks like she’s 14-15. But it’s totally cool, because she’s actually thousands of years old. Or something. I don’t care how many times I play this game, I’ll never marry the Avatar to Nowi or her daughter because it’s creepy. She’s joined by Gregor, who is a walking bad accent with useful skills. Nowi is apparently running away from Gregor, but Gregor is trying to protect her. Chrom and Lissa yell at Gregor, giving away his and Nowi’s position, leaving them surrounded by a band of Plegian religious zealots known as the Grimleal. They’re not good. Chrom agrees to fight to save Nowi and to figure out whether Gregor is good or bad later.

We’ve got a ton of villages to save, but due to my leveling of units, I’ve really only got Ricken and Sumia that can move quickly in this level. So they’ll be saving villages while everyone else helps clean up the center of the map. We’re good though, because Ricken has apparently decided to critical hit anything that moves. At the start of turn three, Nowi gets an attack in and everyone realizes that Nowi is a fucking dragon. More specifically, she’s a manakete, which is a shapeshifting human/dragon hybrid that will become our main non-armor tank for the first half of the game. Gaius decides to get in on the crit party as well, taking out two swordsmen and coming super close to death. Good thing we don’t have permadeath on.

The AI in this game baffles me a little, as the enemies on this level will nearly always bumrush Nowi. That’s not a terrible plan, as she’s comparatively underleveled. But she’s also a beast and destroys literally anything in her path. While that’s tons of free XP for me, it’s a lot of dead bodies that someone has to explain to a Plegian general. In picking up stuff from the villages on the map, we get our first Master Seal (which allows for promotion to advanced classes) and our first8I actually randomly pick up another one immediately after this chapter thanks to a secret seller appearing on the map. Second Seal (which allows for class changing). Because the goals of this game are to have fun and to curbstomp the enemy, we’ll be making liberal use of both of these items to create the most overpowered super soldiers…er…child units we can9I’ve decided to make most of my marriage pairings in this playthrough ones that I enjoy the dialogue between. That said there are some characters who are just cringeworthy no matter who they marry. Looking at you, Nowi.. We advance on the final units with Nowi, Gregor, Ricken, and Panne, wherein Ricken has apparently decided he’s had enough of everyone’s shit and kills the last three units (including the boss) all with critical hits. With Thunder. Which has a 5% base critical chance. Holy RNG, Batman.

After we’ve dispatched of the baddies, Gregor and Nowi make up. Chrom tells Gregor to look after Nowi, but Gregor reveals he’s a mercenary and offers his services to the Shepherds. Chrom accepts. Nowi talks about how she’s been part of a human (manakete?) trafficking ring because holy fuck this game is dark. Lissa is stunned at how Nowi has been mistreated, while Frederick suggests that Nowi come along with us, both as a new, powerful ally, and to keep her safe from her past life. Flavia — who is also here — suggests everyone get some rest before we advance on the Plegian capital, ending the chapter.

End of Level Recap

Starting with this post, I’ve added a section for class changes. Both promotions to advanced classes and reclassing for various purposes will be added in here. There was a bit more reeking box grinding here, though this was mostly for the benefit of Maribelle and Lissa, as you’ll see below. I also may change my initial marriage plan for Cordelia. We haven’t met the character who I plan to be her husband yet, but the more I’m thinking about it, the more I’m unsure I like it. This may become a poll once we get there.

Nearly three years on from its launch, Pokemon Go is still doing quite well for itself. Sure, there are some flaws in the game — like the fact that we never got the footprint tracker from the game’s launch back — but all in all, it’s a pretty interesting game for one that’s closing in on preschool age. One of the big reasons for Pokemon Go’s success is its constant barrage of in-game events. Though some of the events are hit or miss, one of the game’s earliest creations, Community Day, is still going strong.

For those unfamiliar, on Community Day players will have a three-hour window10There have been a couple of exceptions to this rule, most notably Eevee’s Community Day, which lasted 48 hours. where a pre-selected Pokemon will spawn with significantly greater frequency than normal. The Pokemon for Community Day is typically either the base form of one of the various starter Pokemon from the games11Squirtle, Chikorita, Torchic, etc. or a Pokemon that’s known to be overpowered12Metagross, Salamance, Dragonite. or has a special gimmick in the main games13Amphraros, Pikachu.. The end stage evolution of the Community Day Pokemon also gets a special move bestowed upon them that they can’t learn any other time.

The other common thread with Community Day is that it typically coincides with the launch of the shiny forms of that Pokemon’s evolutionary line. Shiny Pokemon do appear at an increased rate, though it is still somewhat low, leading to variable luck between trainers. With the most recent Community Day, Bagon, just wrapping up this past Saturday, I thought it’d be a good time to throw out my ideas for some potential future Community Day Pokemon.

For this list, I’ll be basing all of my entries off of the shiny Pokemon I’d be most excited to see as part of a Community Day. This means that any Pokemon whose shiny has already been released — including my personal favorite, Shellder — are excluded from this list. Furthermore, I’ve chosen to exclude starter Pokemon from this list, as they’re all but guaranteed to eventually get their own Community Days. Additionally, I’ve limited this list to Pokemon from Generations I-IV, as those are the only generations released at the time of writing. All images courtesy pokemondb.net.

10. Voltorb

I genuinely considered cutting this list to nine before remembering that Voltorb’s shiny existed. While it has the same basic color swap as another entry later on this list, the flip from red to blue is simple enough to look good on both Voltorb and its evolution, Electrode. As for its Community Day move, this would be the perfect time to introduce a 1-bar charge move for Explosion, as that’s pretty much Electrode’s entire gimmick.

9. Croagunk

I’m really picky about how I feel about shiny Pokemon with loud coloration. I either love them (see: Shellder, Scizor, Espeon, Murkrow) or hate them (see: Alazakam, Heracross, Masquerain). That said, I quite like Toxicroak’s best attempt at recreating the 1990s Charlotte Hornets jerseys. Croagunk itself is noticeable enough that shinies won’t be hard to spot, so that helps it in my book too. For its special move, I’d give Toxicroak Focus Blast, but only because it already gets most of the good moves it can learn anyway in Pokemon Go.

8. Shuckle

Welcome to the No Fuckle Zone. There would be some people in my local community hyped as hell for this Community Day, in part because of the beautiful artwork that is this shiny. Like a couple of other entries on this list, Shuckle has some other things working against it, thereby keeping it low on this list. It’s the only Pokemon on this list without an evolution, meaning it’ll have to learn the move on Community Day via catch. Beyond that, Shuckle’s offense is putrid, so regardless of what move we give it, it’ll still deal minimal damage. So let’s just give it Rock Slide to mess with people.

7. Weedle

I love Beedrill’s shiny. It’s one of my favorites in the entire game. That said, Weedle gets a low spot on this list because it suffers from the same problem that one of my least favorite Community Days — Bulbasaur — had. The regular and shiny sprites look super similar. Granted, this was common in Gen I, but it does hold Weedle down. Beedrill would ideally be the Pokemon to introduce the move Fell Stinger, which boost attack each time it’s used. Think a Bug version of Power Up Punch, at least for purposes of Pokemon Go.

6. Bidoof

Shiny Bidoof is a meme. You cannot evolve a shiny Bidoof obtained on Community Day. It will know Superpower and it will wreck you all. Praise be.

5. Electrike

Pokemon whose evolutionary line have wildly different shinies can be a little jarring. Hell, just look at the Shellder line if you want an extreme example of this. That said, while the Electrike line has two very different shiny color schemes depending on where in the chain you are, it works. I like the blue Electrike and the gold/gray Manectric equally well, meaning this would be one of the few Pokemon I’d keep a shiny evolutionary family for. Manectric would ideally be the introduction of Shock Wave to the game, giving it a reasonable reward for not being Luxray.

4. Tangela

Green spaghetti. We all support this, right? Cool. Give Tangrowth Power Whip and we’ll call it a day.

3. Seedot

Have you seen the shiny Seedot line? They’re all amazing. All of them. Seedot’s silver and orange color scheme in particular is one of the more unique shiny sprites in the game, which is a shame, as it’s wasted on a line that’s not particularly good in Pokemon Go. In an ideal world, Shiftry ends up with Grass Knot as its charge move on Community Day, but if I’m realistic, it’ll end up with Leaf Tornado, which might be the single biggest dumpster fire of a move in Go right now.

2. Riolu

Let me tell you how much I’d love to see a Community Day for a Pokemon that typically only hatches from an egg. Whether its Riolu, any of the baby Pokemon, or the Alolan types that only come from eggs, it’d be a great way to increase Community Day interest. Riolu is recognizable because of its evolution’s presence outside of the Pokemon main series, not to mention that Lucario has a bevy of moves we could give it. That said, my main reason for picking it over other egg-based Pokemon is because of that yellow and gunmetal shiny. I know it’s not everyone’s taste, but it works in this case.

1. Hoothoot

If memory serves, the first shiny Pokemon we saw in the anime was Ash’s Noctowl. How Hoothoot hasn’t gotten a Community Day yet solely based off this fact alone is stunning. But here’s the thing — Noctowl is an awesome shiny. The gold and rust coloring is a huge improvement over Noctowl’s normal brown coloration and is (at least in my opinion) one of the best looking shiny Pokemon of all generations. Giving Noctowl Air Slash as a quick move for Community Day would be a nice touch, as it’s one of Ash’s Noctowl’s signature moves.

I came to a startling realization the other day. For the first time in well over a year (if not more), I had no drafts in my blog’s Drafts folder. Everything I had started as a draft was finally complete, had been merged into something else, or is something that I ended up scrapping for parts for my work in progress. Well shit. Now what do I do? Since I’ve done two different My Pokemon Gym posts (Fighting, Ice) to this point, I feel like it’s about time to revisit this concept. This is in no way because I was desperately hoping Fire Emblem: Three Houses would be out by now so that I could review it. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

In preparing for this post, I decided to pick a type that wasn’t one I feel super strongly about one way or another. Instead, I picked my type thanks to the single best written character in the first season of the Pokemon anime, Sabrina. She was a difficult gym leader to fight in the Gen I games14Mostly because of how broken the Psychic typing was in those games., though she could be managed if you had something that could outspeed her. While Psychic typing has fallen off in later games, it’s still one of the better typings in the game, not to mention one I struggled to make a team for without repeating Pokemon I’d used on other teams.

As I’ve done on previous Pokemon team/gym style posts, I’ll be sharing the six Pokemon on my team, along with their held items and moves. I’ll also be giving a little additional background into why I’ve chosen each of these Pokemon. I won’t be using legendary Pokemon on my team, as has been the case in previous posts. My main goal in this post was to not reuse Pokemon from the other teams I’ve done, which means no Jynx and no Gallade15To give you an idea of how little I use the Fighting type in games, I had this post completely finished with this rule in mind, only to go back and notice I had used Gallade in my Fighting type gym post.. That said, I also tried to mirror this team to how I play Psychic types in games. While I love elemental coverage on Fighting types and love troll-y, trapping, instant killing Ice types, you’ll see my Psychic strategy below.

Meowstic

The first of three pure Psychic types to grace this team features a struggle that all Psychic types face — how do you hit Dark types? Female Meowstic struggles with this in particular, as it doesn’t gain access to Miracle Eye like its male counterpart. That said, Meowstic is the scout of my team, as the rest of my team is intent of taking out the ever dangerous Dark type, along with Psychic’s other weaknesses in Bug and Ghost. Meowstic is a lead to see what I have to deal with.

Hypno

I lacked friends as a kid16Read: I lacked friends who had Pokemon and a Link Cable., meaning I was locked out of the possibility of getting Alakazam, Golem, Machamp, and Gengar. As a result, my Psychic type of choice in the original generation of games was nearly always Hypno. Its tanky nature made it superior to Kadabra’s frailness, plus it has a shockingly good Attack stat for a Psychic type. Barrier does a bit to help its lackluster Defense stat, but the goal is to help Hypno live as long as possible by any means necessary in an attempt to stall out an opposing Special Attack ace.

Mega Gardevoir

I originally had Gallade here as my dedicated Dark type killer, only to realize my violation of my own rule after the fact. I really do like the Ralts line in general, so it’s not like this is a disappointment. Gardevoir relies heavily on Psychic and Fairy attacks, and I’m not going to change that here. That said, I will say I do prefer Gallade in single battles and Gardevoir in double battles. Mega Gardevoir paired with Oricorio is hilarious if used correctly.

Delphox

I didn’t have a ton of cares for the Fennekin line until I spent the better part of three weeks breeding one as a present for a friend for her birthday. Delphox is super fun to use in game, particularly because of how thoroughly it scares away Bug types. Laugh all you want, but Bug types are much better now than they used to be17This is thanks in massive part to the buff to Leech Life.. Delphox is here to trap you and slowly chip away at your health, and it will keep living thanks to heavy investment in Defense and Special Defense. Also, I made a massive oversight neglecting to have Delphox on my mega evolutions we need to see list.

Starmie

The hardest debate I had was for the fifth spot on the team, as I was stuck going back and forth between Starmie, Alolan Raichu, and Exeggutor. In the end, I picked Misty’s signature Pokemon because I’m a bit more attached to it than I am the other two. I can’t begin to tell you how much I wish Starmie got access to Curse, as it’s too fast to use Analytic effectively. I have a plan to deal with it, but I don’t like it.

Espeon

The Mountain Dew fox is back! And, like Mountain Dew, things just magically bounce around in its presence — in this case status conditions. I love how stupid this set is. I don’t care if there’s zero way for it to his a Sableye. It’s fun. And that’s the whole point of Pokemon.

Welcome back to the worst Fire Emblem Awakening play through ever. When we last left the Shepherds, a tween was getting upset that he couldn’t come to war and blonde Carmelita Spats was about to cause an international incident. In no way will we come back to that storyline for any reason. Also, added more people to our ragtag party of an army, including the strong, silent type, our resident Mary Sue18And Chrom’s future wife. and a talking suit of armor. I’ve also been down a rabbit hole of Awakening content on TV Tropes. I cannot be held responsible for what I say or do as a result of this.

In this post, we’ll be playing through chapters 5 and 6. While these chapters are a bit on the longer side, I feel like I go long enough between posting updates in this series that it’s worth it. Plus, these aren’t the most time consuming chapters I could write on.

Chapter 5: The Exalt and the King

Chrom, Lissa, and Emmeryn are walking through a canyon when they come up on King Gangrel. He’s clearly a bad guy due to the cocky way he stands, as well as his gigantic fur neck covering. Emmeryn tries to negotiate to avoid political turmoil, but she’s quickly interrupted by another baddy, Aversa. Aversa appears to be one part sorceress and two parts see-through clothing. Gangrel and Aversa have captured Maribelle, who is doing her best Chris Jericho impression by calling people troglodytes. Aversa is arguing Maribelle’s insolence is an act of war, and though I know Maribelle is supposed to be on my side, I’m thinking Aversa may have a good point, despite the fact that she and Gangrel are clearly overreacting.

Gangrel accuses Maribelle of being a spy, however instead of arguing Maribelle is too much of an asshole to people who she sees to be below her station to be a spy, Emmeryn’s idea of diplomacy is to say please. Gangrel says no, Chrom gets angsty, and then Gangrel wants the Fire Emblem — which is also the name of the mythical shield belonging to the Ylissian royal family — in exchange for Maribelle. Emmeryn and Gangrel then have a short expositional dialogue explaining what the Fire Emblem is and its powers19To save the world before bedtime., before Gangrel mentions that the whole reason he hates Ylisse is because Emmeryn’s father was a mass murdering sociopath of an exalt.

Chrom then shoots fir…er…kills someone with a sword first, actually starting a war. Great job, hero. You broke it.

Aversa then tries to shame Maribelle into feeling like she started this war when a blast of wind magic kills the guard that’s beside Maribelle. Our teen from last chapter, Ricken, is here to save the day. The level then begins with Ricken and Maribelle cornered, because while Ricken is brave, he is also quite stupid.

I accidentally skip the short cut scene between selecting units and the level actually starting, only to be reminded that the boss in this level is Randy Orton. Because Ricken and Maribelle are cornered, it’s in my best interest to save them first20Despite my desires to the contrary., which means we get another dose of Frederick Emblem, as he and Miriel go off to save our captive friends. I have Lissa and Sully follow, as both Ricken and Maribelle are particularly squishy at this point. Meanwhile, the rest of our crew takes the long way around, picking up XP and items along the way. Except for Vaike, that is, who will be Maribelle’s support partner in the long run.

We get Maribelle and Vaike teamed up, transferring Lissa over to Ricken in the process so Sully can run solo. This doesn’t go amazingly, but she doesn’t die, so it works out. Christopher and Sumia are particularly good at killing our attackers, so the left side of the map is cleared quickly. Even Ricken manages to get in on the fun and games, cleaning up where Vaike misses.

Despite reinforcements being a thing for the first time in this level, we clean up pretty easily because Sumia and Chrom can double hit most anyone when paired. But wait. Breaking news!

Frederick crits someone and we get that beauty of a line. Despite having a 2% crit chance. It’s so good.

We finally advance on the boss, who tries to deliver an RKO out of nowhere to Ricken, but Ricken dodges it. This allows Kellam (of all people) to come in and clean up for the win.

After the fight ends, Lissa and Maribelle reunite. Chrom apologizes to his sister for starting a war and Emmeryn says that it’s okay. Frederick reminds everyone that if this is, indeed, a war, more troops will likely show up and want to battle, so they should get a move on. We do, ending the chapter.

Chapter 6: Foreseer

Outside Ylisstol castle, Chrom is staring into the distance, reenacting the cover of Faith +1’s debut album. Christopher Robin wants to know why he’s out so late. Chrom is dealing with the fact that his father committing brutal war that killed several people on both the Plegian and Ylissean sides. We have a War is Hell moment before Chrom brings up that his father’s death made Emmeryn the ruler of Ylisse at age 10. We’re 15 years on now, but Ylisse seems to be in pretty good shape for having a young person run the country. It’s almost as if the real world could learn something from video games.

The conversation is interrupted by clearly-not-a-girl Marth, who warns Chrom and Christopher that an assassin is here to kill Emmeryn. Marth spends far longer than should be necessary convincing them that a threat on the life of the ruler of an entire nation needs to be taken seriously, but she manages to get the point across by slaying a second assassin that has arrived to kill Chrom. A third assassin then shows up because reasons. While he manages to get the drop on Marth — splitting her mask in two with his sword, Chrom kills him. Everyone is then shocked…SHOCKED, I SAY…to realize that Marth is a girl. She then gives speech about how she’s impressed she managed to fool everyone, leading into the beginning of our level.

Some guy named Validar is here to take over the castle and Emmeryn is encouraging us to flee while we still can. That said, the Shepherds aren’t going anywhere — in fact, we gain a few new members on turn two in the form of Gaius, a sticky handed thief, and Panne, the last of a rabbit-like shapeshifting race called the taguel. Marth is an ally for us in this level and she’s here to kick ass and chew bubble gum. It’s evident by the critical hits she’s dealing out that she’s all out of bubble gum. Cleaning out the incoming army takes a little bit longer than expected, as I didn’t do a massive amount of reeking box grinding prior to this level, but it’s still not too much of a challenge. Eventually, we draw out Validar and let one of the newcomers, Panne, get the final blow to end the level.

After the level, Chrom is excited to see Emmeryn safe, while Phila feels as though she’s let Emmeryn down due to the assassination attempt. The gang realizes Marth is now gone and nowhere to be found. Chrom runs off looking for her and finds her in the castle courtyard. Chrom offers to repay her for saving his life, but she turns him down. Her logic is that history has been rewritten, which may be true, but we’re clearly not even close to the end game, so there’s more of the story rewrite, I’d presume. Marth then vanishes into the darkness, as she’s Batman.

Emmeryn thanks Panne for her assistance in saving her life. We then get backstory on the taguel and let’s just say humans have been super shitty to them. Emmeryn tries her best to make amends for humanity’s terrible treatment of the taguel and Panne is annoyed, but appreciative. We then cut to Validar trying to sneak around in the darkness after his failure to kill Emmeryn, only he’s confronted by a mysterious figure named Grima who is displeased with him. Grima spares Validar’s life, but that’s all we learn for now.

Back in Ylisstol, Phila is playing the role of inept detective quite well, while Chrom is busy blaming foreigners for the attack. Emmeryn tells him to STFU and not be an asshole, because Emmeryn is basically purity personified. Chrom and Frederick convince Emmeryn to let them relocate her for safety’s sake, which is where our level ends.

End of Level Recap

Below are the unit progress and support progress we made in these chapters. I did a touch of reeking box grinding between chapters 5 and 6 for sake of getting some levels on our healers. This leads to some of the massive growths in terms of both levels and supports you see below.